ABSTRACT

Covering colloids, polymers, surfactant phases, emulsions, and granular media, Soft and Fragile Matter: Nonequilibrium Dynamics, Metastability and Flow (PBK) provides self-contained and pedagogical coverage of the rapidly advancing field of systems driven out of equilibrium, with a strong emphasis on unifying conceptual principles rather than material-specific details.

Written by internationally recognized experts, the book contains introductions at the level of a graduate course in soft condensed matter and statistical physics to the following areas: experimental techniques, polymers, rheology, colloids, computer simulation, surfactants, phase separation kinetics, driven systems, structural glasses, slow dynamics, and granular materials. These topics lead to a range of exciting applications at the forefront of current research, including microplasticity of emulsions, sequence design of copolymers, branched polymer dynamics, nucleation kinetics in colloids, multiscale modeling, flow-induced surfactant textures, fluid demixing under shear, two-time correlation functions, chaotic sedimentation dynamics, and sound propagation in powders.

Balancing theory, simulation, and experiment, this broadly-based, pedagogical account of a rapidly developing field is an excellent compendium for graduate students and researchers in condensed matter physics, materials science, and physical chemistry.

A day in the life of a hard-sphere suspension (Wilson C K Poon). Light scattering and rheology of complex fluids far from equilibrium (David J Pine). Polymer physics: from basic concepts to modern developments (Alexei Khokhlov). Rheology of linear and branched polymers (Tom McLeish). Introduction to colloidal systems (Daan Frenkel). Computer simulations is soft matter science (Kurt Kremer). Equilibrium and flow properties of surfactants in solution (Didier Roux). Phase transitions in nonequilibrium systems (David Mukamel). Coarsening dynamics of nonequilibrium phase transitions (Alan J Bray). Supercooled liquids and glasses (Walter Kob). Aging in glassy systems: experiments, models and open questions (J-P Bouchard). Phase separation and aggregation in colloidal suspensions (Henk Lekkerkerker). Thermodynamics and hydrodynamics of hard spheres; the role of gravity (Paul Chaikin). Granular materials: static properties as seen through experiments (Sidney Nagel). Stress transmission in jammed and granular matter (Michael Cates). Participants' addresses. Index.